Dezeen Magazine

Paizi 38 installation by Remix Studio

Beijing designers Remix Studio created a string installation that guided visitors through a derelict building to a pop-up restaurant at Beijing Design Week 2013 (+ slideshow).

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio

Entitled Paizi 38, Remix Studio created the intervention as part of the urban regeneration of the historic Dashilar hutong in Beijing.

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio

Lengths of string and a wooden path created a journey through three traditional courtyards, leading visitors over rubble and through holes in the walls.

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio

Threaded through the doorways, the strings spanned room lengths in grouped arrangements.

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio

In the final courtyard space, lightbulbs hung from the ends of the strings over dining tables at a temporary restaurant.

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio

"The city builds millions of square metres every year at an uncontrollable speed whilst instead this project forces the investors, the designers, the city to a new slowed-down development," said the practice.

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio

Following the temporary intervention for this year's Beijing Design Week, the space is to be turned into a boutique hotel.

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio

At last year's event a constellation of illuminated ceramic yoghurt pots were hung in the stairwell of a former bicycle factory and Nike shoe material was used to create a colourful web in a rusting gas tower.

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Here's some more information from the designers:


This space will become after the Beijing Design Week a new boutique hotel that will be grafted into the existing building through precise insertions and punctual modifications.

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio

These considerations are the premises and the constrictions of the temporary installation we are exhibiting today. Starting from the structural survey and the analysis of the actual spaces that in succession form an extended horizontal layered system - an unique feature for a building typology such as this one especially in this area of Beijing.

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio

We propose a new connective path that reveals the existing building secrets and tunnelling throughout the architectural body it highlights in few observations points the quality and characteristics of the future intervention.

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio

The system of new portals is a succession of points of view that, passing in the position where the new hotel circulation will be placed, forces the visitors into an unexpected journey; challenging his imagination and forcing him to redefine the meaning of "exploration".

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio
Diagram showing before installation and after hotel is built

The path ends in the main room where a series of photographs taken from the Orchid hotel construction will show the quality of the future refurbishment.

The Orchid installation by reMIX Studio
Plan and elevation

The tunnel, branching in a three lines lighting feature marks visually the areas of the main space where the opening dinner of the Beijing Design Week will take place.